Moving Towards Hope in the Patent Sphere...

By: Ashley Sloat

Senators Chris Cooms, Tom Cotton, Dick Durbin, and Mazie Hirono recently introduced the Support Technology and Research for Our Nation's Growth and Economic Resilience (STRONGER) Patents Act of 2017 into the Senate. The STRONGER Patents Act seeks to remedy some of the unintended negative consequences of the American Invents Act on patent owners. To highlight a few key aspects, the STRONGER Patents Act focuses on:

(1) Harmonizing claim construction standards across adjudicating bodies to “ordinary and customary meaning of the claim as understood by a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains.”
(2) Refining and limiting processes by which post-issuance proceedings (e.g., post-grant review and inter partes review) are instituted.
(3) Providing a (improved) pathway for patent owners to amend challenged claims during an expedited examination procedure or during a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) Proceeding.
(4) Restoring presumption of injunctive relief for patent owners when a patent is found valid and infringed.
(5) Eliminating USPTO fee diversion so that fees collected by the USPTO can remain with the USPTO. 

Overall, I think all these changes are positive and exciting (especially from patent owner and practitioner viewpoints), but I will wait to give my full appraisal until after the House and Senate battle it out. The pendulum is starting to swing back in favor of patent owners, but now we just have to make sure we find a good balance between the extremes.